In a first, the state has purchased shoot houses designed for indoor gun training to help school staff ‘respond to active shooter’

Ohio appears to be the first state to purchase shoot houses – mobile homes designed for indoor firearms training – to better prepare public school staff “to respond to an active shooter”.

The Ohio Controlling Board, which helps oversee changes to the state budget, approved public safety officials’ request for $78,028 last month to purchase two shoot houses to help train public school employees that are allowed to carry firearms at work.

“Currently, we have movable canvas walls that can be configured to simulate responding to an active shooter in a school, like walking down a hallway, but there are limits,” said Jay Carey, a spokesperson for the Ohio department of public safety. “The more realistic we can make the training, the better prepared armed school staff will be to respond to an active shooter.”

  • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The more realistic we can make the training, the better prepared armed school staff will be to respond to an active shooter

    At Uvalde, local law enforcement trained AT THE SCHOOL. It didn’t help at all. And that was for people trained for a shootout. What makes anyone think this is a good idea for regular staff members?

    Under the 2022 law, school personnel – who were previously required to receive the same 700 hours of firearms training as law enforcement officials or security officers – can carry guns at school after 24 hours of instruction, provided they have permission from the local school board.

    Holy shit. I’m not a gambler, but I wouldn’t bet against someone getting shot unjustifiably in the first year of implementation.

    • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Let me preface this by saying that I wholly agree with you, and that more guns or training isn’t going to solve this problem.

      BUT

      I’d also wager that any teacher is likely going to be more willing to protect their students than any cop/the police.

      Teachers with guns + training is not the solution to the problem. That being said, cops don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, so replacing them with literally anyone else will likely result in massive performance improvements!

      • AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        You have teachers in school with guns it’s only gonna be a matter of time before you have new stats to play with.

        Number of students killed or maimed by a teacher’s gun during a fight or other altercation. Number of teachers and students killed by a student who gets a teacher’s gun. Number of teachers who commit suicide using their service gun.

        I’m not even using my hyperbole muscles, that’s just what’s gonna happen.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          No you are bringing up a good point. This happened with the Sikhs. The boys carry a concealed dagger as part of their faith and issue brought up was even if you could trust that particular kid other kids know they have it and could take it from him. From what I understand most now wear a ceremonial blunt wood one.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I don’t know if that is always the case, but it is certainly true that the kirpan is not required to be sharp (I was just reading about it the other day). They may also just be strapped down to the scabbard rather than glued. I’ve seen people do that at places where costumes involving swords are worn like ren fairs.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Consider also that not every teacher is a stable individual. Teachers are put in high-stress situations with a bunch of snotty little goblins who push every button. Teachers are human beings, and cover the entire spectrum of psychological stability. Police are ostensibly screened and trained in restraint.

        Some teacher is going to get pushed too far and shoot a child.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Has anyone not had at least one teacher their life who mysteriously vanished during the school year and people talked about how they kit a kid?

      • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        I had a very eye opening expirience hanging out with education majors when i was in college. Teachers are just normal people who happen to work with kids. They are just as selfish, caring, unstable, and understanding as anyone else. Ask yourself which of your neighbors you would trust to stop a home invasion, and realize that is the same pool you are asking to stop school shootings.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I got one neighbor I would trust to stop a home invasion, he is an alcoholic welder and emits a low level tough guy field. We get along. Pretty sure he would throw himself in front of a bus to save my kids life but hasn’t bothered to learn their names.

    • PoorYorick@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      There is a very distinct plan here. They want to drive out the teachers who believe in empathy and compassion, instead to replace them with the kind of person who prefers armed hierarchical power settings.

      This is just another way to change the education system for the worse, and if it continues, it will take generations to fix.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        And if any of the ones with empathy and compassion are still around, the ones with the guns can just shoot them.

    • moshankey@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I miss being a teacher so much. Definitely not for this crap. I worked with another teacher years back who actually kept a bullet proof vest on his office. A bit of a nut. This would be back in 2011, I believe. I just rolled my eyes. Scared me.

      I used to be a gun owner. I enjoyed shooting and cleaning my gear. I also believe in laws that control so that people like me don’t have them. I have my own mental health demons so , no guns. I also believe in a need to train heavily for situations that may occur. Teachers don’t have time to pee (personal experience of myself and others), let alone train for this. Preparedness for life or death situations takes a whole lot of training. If a teacher is already frazzled, which we always are, and a situation starts, I would not want that person armed and protecting. No doubt the ones who wish to carry are the cowboys who would run at the first shot heard anyway.

  • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Sorry kids, we can’t teach you music anymore. We spent that money on shoot houses.

    Gee, I wonder why no one from the “nice” countries wants to move here.

    • ours@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      In my country, kids see the cops a couple of times at school where they show them how to safely cross roads and later road rules for bikes.

      Yeah, paramilitary teachers sounds so tempting but I think I’ll pass.

  • rtxn@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    America never ceases to amaze me. Nothing about this is normal.

    • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Choosing the wrong solution for a problem they’ve created sounds exactly like US political leadership

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        And wouldn’t you know? That kind of demagoguery is one of the many things Europe keeps importing from the US! Including an extremely worrying resurgence of fascism and far right political violence all over the continent inspired by Trump et al!

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I have asked advocates of this several times exactly how it can be ensured that a student would never be able to get access to a teacher’s gun. The best I get are various versions of “well they just won’t.”

    I also like to ask if they ever had a teacher with a really bad temper who might have been tempted to use a gun in a moment of blind rage if they had one available.

    Because I sure did.

    • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s not hard to find instances of SROs misplacing their firearms. Now we’ll add more guns with less training. Surely nothing will go wrong.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Just a month or so ago, the one in my daughter’s former middle school left his on the bathroom sink and a kid found it. Thankfully, the kid did the responsible thing and reported it to the office. One of the many reasons I’m glad we got her out of that hellhole.

      • IamSparticles
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        8 months ago

        Huh. Me too. On more than one occasion he threw his baton at someone for talking during class.

        • blindbunny@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Dude is that just a music teacher thing? He did it to me twice? And I just acted like that was ok…

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        My middle school band teacher was a bitter alcoholic. He was one of the top jazz trombonists in the country, but ended up teaching middle school band due to the alcoholism. I don’t know if he would ever have used a gun, but I don’t particularly want drunk teachers having access to them. And he was not the only teacher I had who showed up to school drunk. My drama teacher only got fired for it because she got near-blackout drunk and stumbled past the office.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yep. I said this below- I sure as hell had teachers with anger management problems who I could absolutely see losing it one day and grabbing the gun and shooting, at the very least, the kid who goaded them into it.

    • lightnegative@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yep, I was a complete dick to my teachers. I’m pretty sure at least one of them would have shot me had they been armed

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I know this gets mentioned often but don’t care. More astronauts have come from Ohio than they should given the population size. Ohio is so terrible it makes people soured on earth itself.

  • lightnegative@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    It’s the most American thing ever to tackle a gun problem with more guns.

    After teachers are trained to respond to an active shooter (usually the realm of a specialist armed offenders squad), students will start being trained to respond to an active shooter.

    Then, due to helping kids learn the Metric system, 9mm pistols will be part of the school stationary